Monday 28 February 2011

Help....(I need somebody)

People ask for help. Some want it but others are not prepared to listen. I've had this in my personal life and my professional life. There was a post on SF I commented on recently which had provoked quite a lot of controversial comments. One in particular said about how this person had asked for help but was not listening to any advice that was being given to them.

"Probably very few people on here will actually agree with me, but I'm going to say it.. If things are that bad that you feel this way, and you wont seek help then there's not a lot anyone on here can actually do for you.
..
This comment has made me think quite a lot recently. Along with this girls blog. They are both exactly right in what they say. I feel the same way. Yet why when it comes to me can I not practice what I preach? Why do I have these strong feelings of not being able to cope? Why am I seeing suicide as the easy way. I know I have to fight this. I don't know how much fight I have left in me. I am so close to breaking point. But I have been here before. It was 2008. I was taking OD's on a weekly basis. Planning them. Going out in my lunch break and getting co-codamal from pharmacies in the hope that if I took enough the codeine in them would send my body in to shutting down (CNS depression). I knew that the paracetamol was a long drawn out process of dying. Sometimes I would take OD's and go to bed but then I would wake up the next day. A few days later with no pain I would take a load more. I was cutting, burning, scratching and banging. I was looking up medications online and different plants that were poisonous. Sometimes I would wake up in hospital as I would leave my flat in a weird state and then pass out. I used to drink with them so I wasn't thinking straight. Sometimes I would remember leaving the flat and think I would go and get run over, die of hypothermia, or that I was too hot and needed the air as the air in the flat was stifling.  

Even now I am doing the same thing. I have not taken many OD's. I have taken a couple to test the water as such. But I look up drugs. I look up combinations of things or what certain things would do if I took too much. I can't do anything that would give me a bad stomach so a lot of OD's are out for me. But I think now find the right combination and bam!

I look in to ways it would look like an accident. If I think I can make it look like an accident then I will take that opportunity. Like when I was in hospital and I tried to kill myself by pulling the end off the cannula and letting it bleed out. I have actually said this Dr T. I was talking to the nurses on the 136 Suite about it. I said I felt suicidal, I was always looking for methods. I even made a joke saying I don't understand why I was on a 136 after looking like I was going to jump off a bridge, I am scared of heights and I said I wouldn't go for something so obvious as that. And painful. I said I am a wuss. I need accident, painless, go to sleep kind of way...like blood loss through cannula. Although now I have said that I think if I was to be in hospital for something and that happened they would know it was suicide as I told them about it. I don't think do I?!

So why wont I listen to my own advice. Why am I doing the things that other people do and they annoy the hell out of me and it makes me want to punch them. For instance I am working with this woman at the moment who is about to be kicked out her flat. She has lived there quite a while and she has come to us saying she needs help as she doesn't know what she can do. Last week she was given a final warning. Today I have a phone call from the police and the council saying there have been more complaints to police, police incidents and complaints to the council over the weekend. Now why, when you have already been given a final warning would you have friends over drinking with you late at night. Why would you compromise your neighbours security by propping open the security door? This was 2 days after her final warning!!!!!

She rang me in tears, she rang me and I ended up taking her to the ED because her mental state was affected that much by the final warning that I was concerned. I spent nearly 9 hours with her. She annoyed the hell out of me; if you are with me you must learn to chew with your mouth closed and don't chomp!!!!!! I was seriously annoyed with her. I was mega anxious anyway as of being in the ED and being stared at by the staff who knew me as crazy drunk, self harmer, suicidal, messed up girl. Refer to previous post on that one! She asked me for help. Now if she is not going to listen to my advice what do I do. Do I say "sorry, you have not listened to us, you have not engaged or made any effort, see you at the shelter when you are homeless". Or, do I continue to support and have my advice fall on deaf ears. Why should I put so much time and effort in to her when I have other cases that have child protection issues that I need to find housing for (even the police officer I spent 45 minutes on the phone to today laughed at me and said rather you than me). One I am working on really wants help, she rings me and asks advice and she listens. OK, I have sort of a God complex about this one as she seems to worship the ground I walk on but she is listening. She is taking advice. She wants to help her self.

Yet here I am saying to people you have to help yourself and what the hell am I doing. I research suicide most of each evening. I don't reach out for help when I probably most need it as I am too worried about peoples perceptions of me...i.e the diagnosis of PD will be easier if I am "attention seeking". I try and deal with it on my own, or I self harm. Or I wait until I have had a drink and then think about throwing myself off bridges. I know I wont be calling crisis team. I don't even really know why I am still under them as there is no way I will call them...I have also addressed that in previous posts. Yet I am told over and over and over I must seek out help. I don't. The help is being offered to me, do I listen, NO! So I am just as bad aren't I?

So that makes it pretty much that there is not an awful lot that anyone can actually do for me. And you know what, you know how that makes me feel. Even more suicidal. Yup! Stupid isn't it. I then see that I am beyond help, that nothing can be done and that this fight is going to be lost soon. I think I have said before that the life of an alcoholic bum seems appealing at times. I don't like being bothered by things. I am over bothered by everything. Doesn't it seem appealing to be only bothered about sitting around all day pissed. Or being sectioned. I can give up then. I don't have to fight anymore. I can self harm as much as I want. I can stop caring about what people think and just do what makes me happy. Not have to impress people, not have to abide by the strict rules and regualtions of normality. I can see me many miles away inactive (sorry for the Evita quote there - dam now I have to put it on). I can see a life of not having to fight, of taking the easy way. The longer that this "conflict" goes on the more it seems attractive. The more giving up seems attractive. I am not sure how much of me wants to go on like this.

I have constant conflicts going around in my head. I am annoyed with myself as if I were my own patient I would be annoyed with me. I am the patient I hate the most. The ones who say they want help but then are not willing to take the advice.

 I like to take a very medical approach to everything and think everything should be treated with pills and medication. I am not one for this whole idea of psychology...I know I did a degree in it, I am bloody doing social work which is not scientific. But I like science. I like right and wrong answers. I don't like so and so argues this while so and so argues that. There is no right answer there. I want answers. I don't want people trying different approaches with me. I want medicating. I want it to be solved with medication. Not talking. If it can be medicated then it's medical which there is less of a stigma.

I think I know deep down that I need to talk about things. I am not one for emotions. I don't like emotions. Not negative ones anyway. I try not to show negative ones. One of my colleagues from my placement seems very tuned in to what I am feeling. I hate it. I have only been there 3 weeks and she picks up on everything. She is so nice and so to the point. But it scares me. I don't give my emotions away but she will say things like "go for your nicotine fix mental, I can tell that was a tough phone call"! I will have been laughing and joking on the phone but inside I am thinking Shhhhhhiiiiiiiiittttttt, WTF am I going to do with this inbred woman whose mum is also her aunty. Ok exageration there but I have had pretty similar stuff.

So how do I stop myself being my own worst client/patient/service user. I know people say you are your own worst enemy/critic. But seriously what can I do?

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